Case 4 Green Isle's Goodfella's Pizzas

Michael O'Rourke sits behind his desk, gazing at the latest pizza sales figures for the UK and Irish markets. He is well pleased; sales have surpassed all expectations in the past five years.

He can still clearly remember the day it all started, back in 1992. Green Isle Foods, a subsidiary of Northern Foods (www.northernfoods.co.uk) marketed convenience foodstuffs and had been look­ing around for an opportunity for a high quality, mass-market product. O'Rourke himself had been monitoring the fast-food market and saw pizzas as the food of the 1990s. As he told the then Board of Directors, 'people are eating pizzas for breakfast, dinner and tea, for snacking and grazing or main meals'. However, the pizza market was not without its difficulties at the time. It was already growing and had several key players such as San Marco with its traditional Italian image, and McCain, which competes on a price basis. Coupled with this, Green Isle itself was already a player in the pizza market, but competing in traditional sectors with outdated technology.

Against this background, O'Rourke persisted and convinced top management that the challenge was for Green Isle to 'move the goalposts' in setting a new standard in quality and taste for main-meal pizzas. With this in mind, he undertook extensive market research. The three research objectives were to:

• identify a major development opportunity for premium-quality frozen pizza;

• identify the positioning for a premium mass-market pizza brand;

• forecast market growth for frozen pizzas.

The consumer

Secondary data indicated that the consumption of pizzas and pizza-based products had been on the increase during the previous few years. However, along with this, survey research showed that consumers had become more discerning in their purchases. In relation to pizza, Irish consumers had become familiar with Italian foods and exhibited good discrimination with respect to what offers good quality and value.

Consumers viewed pizza as a convenience food to be eaten at any time. It was reasonably nourishing and healthy, and provided a variety of flavours and tastes. Qualitative research showed emotional aspects of fun, freedom, socialising and a cosmopolitan outlook associated with pizza.

The findings also indicated that the single nine-inch pizza was the driving force behind the market's dynamic growth, while the largest segment- the five-inch pizza - was static as consumers sought better value in the nine-inch range.

The product

In the market, pizzas were cheap convenience foods often bought for children. Product quality was neither high nor consistent, and a key point of differentiation was the deep-pan pizza base. A real opportunity existed if total product quality, ingredient appeal and price pointing could be married together.

A number of blind tests were conducted with a panel of consumers. Without knowledge of the brand, the Goodfella's pizza scored satisfaction ratings 25 per cent higher than the market leaders. As result of extensive product testing, the range of deep-pan pizza includes: Bacon and Mushroom, Cheese Supreme, Pepperoni, Ham and Pineapple in nine-inch format and The Big Cheese and Pepperoni Plus twelve-inch pizzas.